


A Circlet for a Prince, a Crown for a King

by Sun_Spark



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Angst, Dark Roman, Gen, Nothing major or graphic, Other, Pride, Roman Sanders - Freeform, Sanders Sides - Freeform, circlets, crowns, enjoy???, mentions of blades, mentions of blood at the end, minor cuts tho, roman - Freeform, roman is pride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 16:32:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15147242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sun_Spark/pseuds/Sun_Spark
Summary: Roman has been feeling a pull at the back of his mind, and the Prince is soon to remember that he was once a King.





	A Circlet for a Prince, a Crown for a King

Mind the tags loves.

 

“Onto valiantly, and honestly, achieving our dreams!” Roman struck a dramatic pose with his arms raised. “Me-ahhhhhhh~!”

 

He sunk out and popped up back into his room, abruptly cutting off the note and dropping his theatrical pose, along with his smile. ‘ _Honesty._ ’ He thought, ‘Ha! what a joke.’ All the world may be a stage, but there was hardly a need to continue the play when there was no audience to bear witness, thus, the metaphoric stage did not extend to his room.

 

He sighed and looked at his surroundings, taking note that his normally bright and energetic room was muted, the colors dim and overtaken by shadows. The excitable energy that normally bounced off of every wall replaced by a steady humming of a darker power that seemed to cling to everything like smog. 

 

Roman scrubbed his hands over his face with a groan and slumped into his desk chair, staring unseeingly at the mirror. Even the little spherical lights surrounding it didn’t seem to shine quite as bright anymore. He shook his head once more in a useless attempt to clear his mind, intent on doing something to distract himself, and sat up from his sprawled position to rifle through the messy piles of parchment on his desk until he found one that had a half formed idea written out on it that might hold his attention. 

 

He took up his golden tipped quill of bright red from the ornate golden inkwell that sat on his desk and poised it over the page, ready to write out new ideas and expand on the old ones…..but nothing came. He didn’t write anything, merely stared blankly at the page half covered in his scrawling cursive, nothing coming to mind for what seemed to be an eternity. It felt as if the surrounding darkness had seeped into his mind, dimming the bright lights of imagination and creativity that normally burned there. He stayed there, unfocused, until something caught his attention. 

 

The ink from the tip of his quill, thick and dark and glossy, spilling from the sharp metal tip and onto the page with a sharp ‘plop’, staining it. He felt a tug at the back of his mind….the kind he had been feeling for nearly a week now….and turned his head to rest his gaze on the wardrobe where he knew the feeling emanated from.

 

The piece was hewn from chestnut colored oak, ornately carved with scenes of every fanciful kind, and it stood a near head and shoulders above his height. It was beautiful, and he had spent many weeks carving those scenes by hand and polishing the wood. It rarely felt as foreboding as it did now.

 

The sound of dripping ink snapped his attention back to the present and to his desk, where the parchment he had intended to work on sat, irreparably stained by a large pool of ink that had fallen from his quill and marred his previous work, making it unsalvageable. 

 

He…He didn’t understand why this was happening now…without any clear reason. Though he supposed that was the way of things…the darker shadows only coming out to play when the light had no need of them. With a tired sigh he dropped the quill onto the parchment where it landed with a hollow ‘thwump’. He stared unseeingly ahead of him at nothing in particular as a heavy weight settled on his shoulders and in his limbs. He stood after a moment and moved to stand in front of the wardrobe, staring at it with dull and tired eyes. 

 

His shoulders slumped as he let out a defeated breath too small to be a sigh, reaching out with both hands to grasp the intricately carved and curving brass handles, pulling open both doors with a creaking noise that did not normally accopany the action.

 

With the wardrobe open his gaze bypassed the hanging shirts of pristine white, the flowing sashes of apple red, and the soft cloak of deep maroon, landing instead on the shelf above them. Set in its center was an oval cushion of crimson red, on which was resting circlet befitting his rank as a _‘prince’_. He picked it up and held it gingerly in his hands, running a thumb over it’s surface, looking at it with a frown. He had only worn it a few times, never daring to wear it more than that for fear that the others would notice. 

 

Not fear that they would notice that the _“prince”_ was wearing it, no, but rather that they would notice how it was made of polished brass coated in metallic paint to look like gold rather than being made of gold itself, that they may notice how the circular gems set equidistant around it’s circumference didn’t shine like rubies, but were muted like the paste they were, that they would notice how flimsy and light it was…like the piece of a cheap costume that it was.

 

He furrowed his brow and frowned down at it before placing it back on the cushion, settling it in the indent that made it appear heavier than it actually was. His gaze turned then to the rectangular section of wood that sat to the right of the shelf, reaching from the top of the wardrobe down to the shelf’s level and spanning half the width of the wardrobe. It appeared to be solid, carved with the façade of a castle set on rolling hills, a cartoon style crown hovering in the sky above it. Several small, golden hooks were dotted around the carving and ran the length of the bottom, each holding a piece of jewelry. To any who looked at it, that’s all it would appear to be: A section for hanging jewelry, extravagantly carved by the fanciful _‘creativity’._ But looks could be deceiving, as well Roman knew.

 

He sighed as he reached into the depths of the wardrobe, running the pads of his fingers along the underside of the section, back to the farthest corner where the back and side of the wardrobe met. There he felt around for a moment before finding the raised knot of wood residing there and pressed on it, withdrawing his hand as he watched the front panel of the hollow section slowly fall open.

 

He stared at the compartment’s contents, and part of him longed to slam the front shut, seal the compartment up, and return to ignoring its very existence again. But that dark feeling tugged at the back of his mind again, a feeling of dark fog coating his mind and driving all the will to fight that call out of him. He stared into the compartment where the object inside seemed to suck all of the light from the room. He gave in and picked it up from where it sat on a bare shelf, well, bare save the black substance that seemed to ooze from the thing itself, yet never really touch it. 

 

He drew it out and stepped back from the wardrobe, holding it between his hands as he moved in front of the ornate full length gold mirror in the corner of his room, not looking up at his reflection in favor of staring at the heavy object in his hands. 

 

Between his fingers rested a crown. It was not made of brass and painted with gold like the circlet, nor were its gems formed of paste, it was neither light nor flimsy but rather rested heavily in his hold. It was formed of solid steel, the band rising to form nine tines around its circumference, each wide at their base and remaining so until they formed a point: One stood taller than the rest, at the center of the headpiece, jutting tall like the spire of a dark church, the other eight falling short of its height by nearly an inch. The crown gleamed even in the darkness, despite its color, black as midnight pitch, with the exception of the edges of each tine which shone silver. At the base of each blade like point was a gem, and they were very, very real, and deep red the likes of blood. Each was circular in shape except the largest one that sat at the fore, under the largest spine, tear shaped like a drop of blood.

 

Roman looked up at himself in the mirror, noting how tired he looked, how dull his eyes had become, and how his limbs sagged under an invisible weight. His eyes flicked to his wrists when a shadow caught his eye, and he watched as the inky substance the crown seemed to secrete moved as if alive, running up his wrists to his tunic sleeves and seeping into the fabric, turning it black. 

 

He watched for a time, impassive and without the energy to attempt stopping it, until it reached his shoulders. As it began to creep onto his chest he returned his focus to the crown with an air of boredom, too tired for any instinct of self-preservation – for himself or for Thomas – to seem like more than a buzzing gnat at the back of his consciousness. He balanced the headpiece in his left hand, raising the right to run his thumb and forefinger along the silver edges of the center spine, from base to tip. 

 

Of course he knew they gleamed silver because the steel had been sharpened like the edges of a sword blade, and that’s all the nine spines were, after all: Blades.

 

He smiled as he watched his blood run crimson down both the spire and his fingers, a dark energy settling into his mind and body, wrapping around him like a cloak and seeping into him like the presence of a lover. Like it was returning home.

 

He stood straight, energy restored, as he returned his gaze to the mirror and met his own eyes, now tinged red in their depths. He watched the blackness spread and seep into the remainder of his clothes, and into his skin beneath them, staining the fabric but leaving his skin unmarred in favor of settling deeper. He smiled as he raised the crown to his head, uncaring of the blood running down the center spire’s length. 

 

‘After all’, he thought, ‘What is **_Pride_** , but a double edged sword?’

Fin~


End file.
